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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914821">kindred spirits (not so scarce as I used to think)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuthlessNancy/pseuds/RuthlessNancy'>RuthlessNancy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Anne of Green Gables Fusion, Alternate Universe - College/University, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Bisexual Georgie Barker, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon mental health issues, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Depression, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Inspired by Anne of Green Gables, POV Georgie Barker, Past Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Platonic Pining, TMA Big Bang 2020 (The Magnus Archives), Underage Drinking, oliver is both matthew and marilla and is therefore twice as stressed, suicidal idealation, they're 16 so in the uk that's legal but I don't want to catch anyone unawares, this felt cheerful while I was writing it I swear</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:22:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,822</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914821</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuthlessNancy/pseuds/RuthlessNancy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Georgie thinks it over and decides that drowning over pride is slightly less dignified than screaming for help from her ex-best friend Jon Sims When she'd said she'd rather die than ever talk to him again, she hadn't expected the universe to take her so literally.</p><p>An Anne of Green Gables inspired AU, set in modern day England.  Jon and Georgie are childhood best friends, but the two stop talking after a falling out.  Although doing their best to avoid each other, Georgie struggles to escape him, even while dealing with her own mental health issues and a blossoming romance with her housemate, Melanie.   Is Jon truly the kindred spirit she once considered him?  Or will the two eventually part ways for good?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Georgie Barker &amp; Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker/Melanie King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>TMA Big Bang 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>kindred spirits (not so scarce as I used to think)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm so excited to be finally posting this!  All the love to my wonderful betas, Nicky and Crys.  This would still be lurking at the bottom of my drafts without you xx<br/>Title, as well as the basis for the AU, is from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, with extracts from The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Tennyson.  It isn't necessary to read either, of course, but there is currently an audio read by Mary Kate WIles on Spotify that I'm listening to while posting and would definitely reccomend.<br/>Written as part of the TMA Big Bang; if you haven't seen anyone else's work yet, you're missing out. Speaking of incredible work, follow these links to see the art that goes along with the fic!</p><p>https://tmabigbang.tumblr.com/post/636814961796055041/suprise-i-drew-this-for-tmabigbang-the-fic-i</p><p>https://tmabigbang.tumblr.com/post/636814049023344640</p><p>https://tmabigbang.tumblr.com/post/636811624555200512/image-id-digital-art-of-melanie-king-and-georgie</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Georgie Barker is lying in a boat, pretending to be dead.  This is, perhaps, an unusually morbid pastime for a teenage girl, but then Georgie Barker was considered by many to be unusually morbid for a teenage girl.  After the sudden loss of her parents some years previously, she had developed something of a fixation on rumours of hauntings and supernatural mysteries; something only encouraged by her guardian Oliver, the local coroner.  The neighbours frowned disapprovingly, of course<em> - a funeral parlour is no place for a young girl to grow up! - </em>  and gossiped behind twitching curtains <em> - a bit of an odd duck, that Mr Banks, keeps himself to himself; you know, he never married? - </em> but this wasn't something she felt particularly guilty for.  Learning from "Uncle Oliver's" example, she kept her more… unusual projects to the privacy of their kitchen table, her own neat shorthand joining Oliver's illegible doctor's handwriting on the chalkboard in the corner where as long as they respected the firmly shut door the neighbours couldn't reasonably complain.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie herself was perfectly fine, thank you very much.  Initially, the ghost stories made her feel closer to her parents; a little less empty, a little more confident, a little more optimistic about whatever nebulous concept of an afterlife may or may not be lurking somewhere in her future.  She wasn't scared anymore; only an urgent curiosity remained.  She had to know more; she had to be more; she couldn't bear the fault of dying suddenly and unfulfilled.  Her mum had left so many plans unfinished – Georgie stubbornly refused to do the same.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie liked black lipstick and investigating the ghost that still walked Lover's Lane; she also liked loud music and glittery gold eyeshadow.  She was a well rounded woman of depth and maturity, and she refused to apologise for anything that she enjoyed.</p><p> </p><p>She made a habit of standing out, resigned to a certain level of infamy anyway as the only transfer student in all of Avonlea's very small school.  It would be wrong to say that no one dared bully her, because high school was high school and predictably awful in a hundred boring ways, but Georgie gave as good as she got.</p><p> </p><p>In most cases, anyway.</p><p> </p><p>She liked to think she was living up to her early goals of seizing life by the horns, although Oliver never seemed too exasperated with her.  She gathered that this would usually mean she was failing in some aspect as a teenage hellion, but then Oliver always took everything so well right up until those rare occasions he began planning to fake his death, demolish the morgue, and move the two of them off to Canada with new careers and identities.  He never followed through with any of this but Georgie was fairly certain this was not the norm for many of the country's other teenagers.  He always made sure to include her input in these plans, though, which was nice.  It made her feel valued or whatever.  Georgie could remember being small, lying in bed pretending to be Snow White in that glass coffin whenever she couldn't sleep.  Something about the deliberacy of it all had fascinated her - how dreadful, to be on display like an artifact in a museum!  How macabre!  How interesting, she had thought.  If nothing else, Georgie had always been an entertainer.</p><p> </p><p>This was the drawn out summer after GCSEs, which meant they were all a little more desperate for something to do than usual.  They'd watched all the films they could stomach, and Georgie had spent a solid two days sleeping off the stress, but there was only so many times they could play Monopoly before Oliver threw them out of the house.  So they were wandering the fields and the empty streets, wondering what to do with themselves.</p><p> </p><p>"I miss when we were kids and we could just play pretend," Sasha says.  She'd made shortbread every night that week, and they were all munching as she spoke, sat against the trunk of the willow tree in Oliver's garden.  The branches fall down like a curtain, closing them off from the sunshine outside, and the smell of earth and bark and grass is all around. "I spent two whole weeks pretending to be a lion; now I feel embarrassed when I backcomb my hair in case I hear the word "mane"."</p><p> </p><p>Sasha's hair has always been magnificently curly.  She shakes it out, a little self-consciously, and as she does so Georgie decides with a characteristic stubbornness that she's done with false maturity.  "Let's do it," she says.</p><p> </p><p>"What, pretend to be lions?" Sarah says, not seeming all that impressed by the idea.  Her nose scrunches up as she says it.  She goes to push her hair back behind her ears before realising there's none to push back – she had surprised them all by turning up after study leave with an isolation induced buzz cut – and she flushes.  The embarrassment makes her double down harder.  "I don't fancy crawling round Lynde's Hollow growling at people, thanks."</p><p> </p><p>Privately, Georgie thinks her friend needs a better sense of adventure.  That could be great fun! But "Nah," she says, and saves that idea for another day and other company.  Then she remembers the other person she usually hangs out with isn't taking her calls anymore, and her good mood plummets for a second.  Her leg twinges, but Georgie's gotten used to ignoring that by now.  Successfully she makes an attempt at rallying. "Let's play pretend!"</p><p> </p><p>Sasha looks intrigued.  She always was more adventurous than the other two.  "What would we be playing?"</p><p> </p><p>"Whatever we like, I guess." Georgie shrugs, and they fall back into silence.</p><p> </p><p>Outside of the gently shifting branches, a dog barks.  Georgie bites down on one of Sasha's excellent biscuits.  She can hear Oliver bustling around the kitchen making tea – he works from home on Wednesdays, filling out reports – and absentmindedly she wonders whether she should make him a batch of biscuits that evening.  Somewhere, someone is listening to the radio; an advert for storage units echoes across the sunlit lawns.  Somewhere else, someone is mowing their lawn.  It's peaceful.</p><p> </p><p>It's also deathly boring.</p><p> </p><p>She could come outside on any Wednesday afternoon of any summer in any English garden, and hear those exact same sounds.  However nice a moment this may be, it is one that Georgie knows she will stumble across a thousand times in her lifetime, and so the thought of placidly enjoying it any longer fills her with something a little like dread, and a little like disgust, and her skin begins to itch.  There is a restlessness clawing its way out of her, and even as she shifts against the rough bark of the tree she knows she will never get comfortable.</p><p> </p><p>In that moment, Georgie realises she will have to live through every single second of the rest of her life, one after the other, and every moment will feel as interminably long as this one.  Some of those moments will be good, and some of those moments will be bad, and some of them will be a dull neutral, and they will all have to be lived through.</p><p> </p><p>It's a bit like bus rides, she thinks.  You queue up to get on the bus, and you queue up to buy a ticket, and then you walk up and down to find a seat, and in the end you're no closer to where you need to be.  The boredom isn't awful because they had nothing to do.  It's awful because whatever they did do, at some point it would end and they would be bored again, and this would just keep going and going until… until she was dead, and what would she have to show for it all?</p><p> </p><p>Her parents had been there one moment and then gone the next, and sometimes when Georgie closes her eyes, she has to wonder: is this it? Is this what that moment had felt like for them?</p><p> </p><p>"I suppose it isn't the worst idea." Alex interrupts her spiralling thoughts with a concerned nudge to her good leg.  She doesn't seem all that impressed with the plan, but at the end of the day… what else had they come up with, so far?</p><p> </p><p>Georgie grins at her, a little more intensely than perhaps the situation warrants.  "Right, then!  Let's do it!"</p><p> </p><p>Alex gets more into it as they start suggesting ideas.  Sarah, to be honest, only enjoys getting to shoot them down, but after some cajoling she mentions her childhood princess obsession.</p><p> </p><p>"Like Sasha's Speaking!" Alex says, and Sasha groans goodnaturedly, dropping her head onto her knees in an attempt to hide the blush spreading across her cheeks.  "How many pages of research did you do for a ten minute exam?"</p><p> </p><p>"Fourteen," is the muffled response.  "I wanted to be prepared."</p><p> </p><p>Alex laughs, and Georgie remembers her loudly declaring "My plan is to make it up on the spot - I've got the diagrams of cow skulls on my flashcards and that's about it, really" before stalking proudly into the exam room.</p><p> </p><p>"So what princess from "Female Sexuality in Camelot" are we going to impersonate?" Georgie asks cheerily.</p><p> </p><p>Sasha bites her lip, eyes going distant.  "The four main examples I used were the lady in Gwaine and the Green Knight, Morgana's rise to power, Guinevere's affair, and the Lady of Shalott."</p><p> </p><p>She counts them off on her fingertips as she lists them.</p><p> </p><p>"Oo, tell me more about the Sexy Onion Lady." Alex really hams that last bit up, pouting her lips and shimmying as much as she possibly can whilst sat on the ground, to a smattering of applause from the others.</p><p> </p><p>Sasha giggles.  "Okay, so, the Lady of Shalott is a poem by Tennyson about a woman under a mysterious curse, where if she looks directly at the outside world something <em> bad </em> will happen.  She's stuck seeing the world through a mirror, until Lancelot rides by and is <em> simply so attractive </em>that she can't bear to live under this curse any longer, and leaves her tower.  This kills her, apparently, but Lancelot says her corpse is attractive and it's covered with flowers… so that's alright then."</p><p> </p><p>"Sure," Alex says, mimicking Sasha's sarcasm.</p><p> </p><p>"That one's quite dramatic, and fairly simple to act out."  She shrugs.  "But the ending kind of relies on having a boat to send her off in."</p><p> </p><p>There's a contemplative pause, and then "I can get us a boat," Sarah says, eyes still half shut.  She's been quiet for a while now; Georgie had almost thought she was asleep.  "Just… just don't ask where from?"</p><p> </p><p>They look at each other.  Georgie purses her lips.  Is this boat of dubious legality really a good idea?  Is it even safe?</p><p> </p><p>In a neighbouring garden, someone's dog barks.  Just like every day.</p><p> </p><p>"Let's go for it," Georgie says decisively, and the group begins discussing where to find the flowers to cover the "Lady" in, having agreed that this would be Georgie so she won't have to stand.</p><p> </p><p>Sarah had promised lilies, but upon arriving at the river they discover that she had meant the water lilies growing down by the bridge.  Sasha squelches a little way down the bank to pick one (despite disgusted noises from those watching), but the soggy mass she returns with after several close calls isn't at all close to the girls' Romantic ideals of an Arthurian maiden.</p><p> </p><p>"You can't very well suggest we play Lady of Shalott without any flowers," Sarah says, rather snootily for someone who had only heard of the poem in question about an hour ago.  It's clear she feels rather jilted after the quick dismissal of her flowers, but Georgie doesn't feel particularly sorry for her.  Having only had her hair braided a week ago, she doesn't at all relish the idea of covering it with pondweed and water bugs.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm not doing that," is the firm reply, and so the posy settled on is a much drier hodgepodge of daisies, cowslip and dandelions.</p><p> </p><p>The next issue is her outfit - "It feels wrong to be a princess in jeans," Alex had said.  Sasha had found that ridiculous, because the Lady hadn't been royalty at all and "actually a metaphor for repressed feminine agency"; anyway, Alex had wanted to play a knight.</p><p> </p><p>She agreed with her about the jeans - her own are a vibrant purple and getting ratty towards the ankles.  Although wonderfully comfortable, much like her trainers, it isn’t a stretch to say that they’re hardly Arthurian.  Her top is a little more romantic - off the shoulder and lilac, the material smooth and flowing under her leather jacket  - but all in all, as much as Georgie likes her outfit she sees where Alex is coming from.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie had been so caught up in listening to their argument that she missed Sarah disappearing to come back with the boat.  It's not precisely in good condition; the bottom is full of enough water that a second smaller boat could float across it, and the blue paint is scabby and peeling, but nevertheless, it's an actual boat bobbing in the water next to them.</p><p> </p><p>"When did you-" she starts, and then she remembers Sarah insisted on no questions.  Sarah rolls her eyes, and sets two splintered oars down on the bank as the others walk over. </p><p> </p><p>Georgie clambers into the boat, and Sasha hands her the flowers.  She folds her hands around them over her chest and leans back.  The boat tips alarmingly, but eventually settles with her lying across both benches, only slightly splashed (Georgie isn't the lightest person, but she's always had a decent awareness of her centre of gravity).</p><p> </p><p>Her friends loom over her, even more so than usual.</p><p> </p><p>"Comfortable?" asks Alex, and Georgie grins up at her.</p><p> </p><p>"Very."</p><p> </p><p><em> "On either side the river lie," </em> Sasha begins to read the poem; Georgie quickly closes her eyes, and tries to look as lifeless as possible.</p><p> </p><p>"She doesn't look right." Sarah whispers, but her voice carries across the still water.  "She's so still - it's not like her."</p><p> </p><p>Georgie sticks her tongue out at her.</p><p> </p><p>Sasha snorts, but keeps going.  "<em> Piling the shaves in furrows weary - </em> that's you, Sarah, you're the Reaper-"</p><p> </p><p>It's peaceful, lying still and dead and listening to Sasha.  Georgie doesn't want to leap up and fight the trees, this time; she remains in the boat, and watches her friends through her lashes as they impersonate reapers and lovers and "<em> bold Sir Lancelot </em> " with all of Alex's smirking and posturing.  Alex can't sing, but that fits her Lancelot, making him somehow more approachably human than a distant " <em> bearded meteor."  </em> Georgie wonders, suddenly, how her friend would hold herself, proud and gleaming as she returned from yet another heroic quest.  Her breath catches in her throat at the thought of Alex, singing as badly as ever, riding gaily past with her muscles rippling and the sunlight shining in her short dark hair.  It's a pleasant mental image.  <em> Very </em> pleasant.</p><p> </p><p>Sasha, however, remains unaffected by strange thoughts of their friend on horseback.  She laughs so much that she drops the phone she's been reading off of into the mud, but Georgie knows this bit, has been preparing for it all along.</p><p> </p><p>"<em> The curse is come upon me," </em>she cries, and bolts upright, eyes wild and staring, one hand coming up to clutch at her throat.  She must look ridiculous; Georgie feels fantastic.</p><p> </p><p>She catches Alex's eye, and fights the urge to laugh.  Her friend is gazing pseudo-nobly across the water, the wind ruffling her short hair and her brow sternly furrowed.  It's all very dramatic, if you can't see the way she's biting the corner of her lip and the mirth dancing in her grey eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie sinks back down again, the image fixed firmly in her mind's eye.  She goes back to listening to Sasha, still and silent.  From above, she might almost be a doll – her joints stiff and wooden, her eyes fixed jet buttons. </p><p> </p><p><em> "She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott." </em> Alex leans down and kisses her forehead like a benediction.  Her lips are warm; Georgie feels herself floating in a way that isn't just from the other two pushing the boat out.</p><p> </p><p>She does her best to lay still as she floats on.  It isn't difficult – her mind is too busy for the rest of her to move.  Her face tingles where Alex had touched her, electricity crackling under her skin.</p><p> </p><p>Alex had kissed her, and she's still processing how she feels about that.  The evidence suggests it's pretty positive.</p><p> </p><p>The sunlight glows through her eyelids, the water laps peaceably around her - and then a sudden chill bites through her jeans, and the river rushing past no longer feels so soothing.  Dark water seeps up through the bottom of the boat, a crack becomes more obvious, and Georgie realises that the boat is going to sink with a guilty certainty.</p><p> </p><p>Dropping the flowers, she scrambles into a crouching position, not wanting to stand in case the movement fills the boat further.  They bob dismally in the dirty water, limp and dead.</p><p> </p><p>Frantically, she feels around the bottom of the boat, coming up with nothing but splashes.  Georgie remembers Sarah hefting the oars up onto the bank, and there's a horrible sinking feeling in her chest as she realises those oars remained right there on the bank.</p><p> </p><p>She has no hope of saving the boat.  Usually, she would have swum for it, but she hasn't swum since The Accident, and besides, everyone knows the Lukas River has a current, just below the surface.  It pulls you under, if you aren't careful, and better swimmers than her have underestimated it.</p><p> </p><p><em> Count your options, </em>her mum had always said, smile wry and tired.  Her mum had always found a solution, (though maybe she had been biased as an admiring eight year old, maybe she would have become disillusioned if she had only had the chance, maybe her mum wouldn't have been stupid enough to get into this situation in the first place).  She ignores the doubts that pull at her feet, sets her jaw with the confidence her mum would have worn, and thinks through her options.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie has a choice to make. She can sit tight and depend on hope, or take matters into her own two hands and run the risk of vanishing for good.   Either decision could be deadly, and the longer she takes to decide the lower the odds will be.</p><p> </p><p>Having come to a conclusion, Georgie climbs carefully to her feet.  The boat rocks beneath her – she freezes.  It calms, as she stands there not daring to breathe, and she heaves a sigh of relief.</p><p> </p><p>She scans the bank.  There's nothing on the right bank but a steep mud drop, lined at the top with rusted chicken wire.  Even if she could reach it, she'd probably still fall backwards into the river, and if there's one thing that Georgie knows for certain, it is that she does not want to die by falling.</p><p> </p><p>The left bank looks more promising.  Close to her, there are brambles growing right down to the water's edge, but there's a willow tree set a little ways back, branches trailing wistfully into the water like the despairing maiden of the poem.</p><p> </p><p>When she was younger, Georgie had spent most sunny afternoons playing under and around the willow tree in Oliver's garden.  She knows for a fact that if she grabs onto a branch, it will support her weight just long enough for her to make it to the bank, however much it might tear at her hands.  Houses have been built out of those branches; surely they could take the weight of one stocky teenager.</p><p> </p><p>She knocks her braids back over her shoulders, and sets her chin.  She'll only get one chance at this.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie grabs a hanging branch, one hand above the other like she's climbing the ropes at school, and <em> forces </em>her weight to the side.  The leaves rip off as she drags the branch downwards, and a hundred other branches whip and bite at her skin, but she's out of the boat and beyond the current at the centre of the river.</p><p> </p><p>She lands in the brambles with shredded hands and screaming muscles, but she lands on the bank.  Georgie hasn't drowned yet.</p><p> </p><p>She wipes the bubbles of blood off onto her jeans, not wanting the cuts to heal while filled with tree grime, and sets about making her way up the bank.</p><p> </p><p>In this, however, she is far less successful.  Her feet sink and slide through the soft mud, and after several failed attempts that end with her slipping into the river or landing in the brambles, she decides to give it up as a lost cause, at least for now.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie counts her options as she pulls thorns from her hands.</p><p> </p><p>She can't stay where she is.  As it gets darker, it gets colder, and while the lazy August sun is still lounging arrogant and golden in the sky, night will fall eventually.</p><p> </p><p>She isn't having much luck in clambering up the bank.  If she's unlucky, another attempt will damage her already weak leg, and then she really will be stuck.</p><p> </p><p>But what other escape is there?</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes flick across the river, noncommittal and unexpectant, but then she spots it.  There's a boat upstream, and it's coming her way.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie blinks.  She can hardly believe her luck, but there it is, a much more solid looking rowboat sturdily making its way towards her from just around the river bend.</p><p> </p><p>She's prepared to scream for help, but then she notices who's sat at the oars.  It's Jon Sims, her ex-best friend.</p><p> </p><p>His hair's gotten longer since last they spoke, an awkward length that keeps getting in his eyes.  She wonders if this is deliberate.  Georgie wouldn't know; they haven't spoken in months. There's a small smile playing around his lips as he rows, and an unexpected solidity to his chest and bulge to his arms suggests this isn't anything new to him.  He handles the boat with ease, and his skin is the very specific sort of dark brown only achieved after days spent in the sun, out of the shade on the river. </p><p> </p><p>Since when does Jon Sims go outside?  Since when does Jon Sims have a boat?</p><p> </p><p>Georgie wouldn't know.</p><p> </p><p>She thinks about it, and decides that drowning over pride is slightly less dignified than screaming for help from a guy she'd usually go out of her way to avoid.  When she'd said she'd rather die than ever talk to him again, she hadn't expected the universe to take her so literally.</p><p> </p><p>He hears her yells, and their eyes meet across the empty water.  Neither says a word, but Georgie feels an embarrassed heat at the back of her neck that he's seen her like this, marooned and helpless.  There are still flower petals in her hair, she realises, and fights down the urge to brush them away beneath his piercing stare.  Let him think her childish – it makes no difference.</p><p> </p><p>A decision must happen while he's looking at her, because he pulls the boat closer towards her.  Georgie begins to clamber in, hoping she made the right decision.  It's nice of him to help, she thinks detachedly.  She almost-</p><p> </p><p>"I suppose this means we're talking now," Jon muses dryly as he helps her into the boat, and all of a sudden a white hot surge of anger flares back up in her chest.  She hates that she needs him, she hates that he's seen her like this, vulnerable and scared for the second time, and she hates that for a second time he's made it all about him.  Jon Sims, centre of the universe, hero of the hour sweeping poor helpless Georgie off her feet.  She hates him.  She has a wild urge to push him into the river.</p><p> </p><p>"Are we friends, then?" He asks, semi-sarcastic as ever, and something vicious and nasty surges inside her.</p><p> </p><p>"I'll never forgive you, Jonathan Sims," she says, even as she clings to him.  The boat rocks beneath her, and the words force their way out of her with the same inevitability as the river rushing around them.  "I'm done letting you tell me how I'm a failure, and I don't care how much you roll your eyes at me.  We aren't friends, and quite frankly I'm glad."</p><p> </p><p>A strange thing happens; even as she speaks, the rage dies away with a sort of bitter satisfaction.  It's like watching someone else speak, anger pushing her out of her own body while she watches her rescuer crumple around the edges.  She doesn't quite want to say these- no, that's a lie.  Saying this all feels like shrugging away a bramble clawing for her throat.  She just wishes he didn't look so pitiful, but that was Jon all over, ruling through fearing.</p><p> </p><p>"Right." He swallows.  "Right," he says again.  He looks smaller, somehow, and that old guilt comes back like a stray cat through a window.  She pushes it down with a certain amount of viciousness.  "I'll just… drop you off here, then."</p><p> </p><p>He doesn't help her out (she hadn't expected him to).  She stumbles; Jon coughs, awkwardly, as if leading up to something, but then the boat pulls away.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie is left to stand with wet feet on the muddy bank, the last of her wrath curdling and dying in her chest.  She has the distinct feeling that she has murdered something precious.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She makes her way home through the fields, one trainer squelching at every step and her cast sloshing enough that she knows this will probably become a problem.  She lets herself in through the back, cursing at the stuck gate and fumbling with the spare key.  The teeth scratch her hand in a jagged smile, and she drops it twice pulling it out from under the doormat, nearly putting it into the lock upside down.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie stomps the mud off and trips inside. "Am back!  Didn't drown!"</p><p> </p><p>When she pulls the door shut behind her, the whole house shakes.  She winces.</p><p> </p><p>"Upstairs," Oliver yells back, tired concern clear in his voice.  She sighs, and contemplates the relative merits of walking straight back out.  Georgie decides against it and starts to walk out of the kitchen.  She's still dripping slightly; she'll grab a shower once she's reassured Oliver nothing's wrong.</p><p> </p><p>"Shoes off," he calls, still in the study.  It's weird how sometimes he knows what she's doing from another room, but she's gotten used to it after five years living together.  She kicks her trainers off on the mat and heads up, hitting the kettle on her way past so she'll have the promise of warm tea to keep her going.</p><p> </p><p>Turns out she needn't have bothered; he presses a full mug into her hands as soon as she enters the room.  Oliver mouths a greeting at her in the moments before he hangs up the receiver with a definitive <em> click.  </em>Setting the phone down, he begins awkwardly hovering, not quite offering her the lone chair, but not taking it himself either, and that's when she realises just how worried he really is.  He'd had that same worried look last March in the hospital, and Georgie hates to see it again.  "I'm fine, really."</p><p> </p><p>Oliver blinks at her, slowly and pointedly and a little exhausted.  He's leaning against the edge of the desk, and as she watches a formerly tidy pile of paperwork collapses in on itself, an avalanche of neatly formalised death.  He pretends not to notice it, though his shoulders slump a little at the sound.  "I'd like a little more information than that."</p><p> </p><p>Her shoulders come up, sheepishly defensive, and she feels a little like she wants to cry.  The whole way back, a stubborn sort of bitterness had kept her together in a desperate attempt not to break where Jon or anyone else could see her, but this is Oliver.  It would be far from the first time he's seen her cry.</p><p> </p><p>She swallows, feels the movement ripple through her whole body, and steps forward into him.  "I'm sorry."</p><p> </p><p>One of his hands comes up, pressing loose and awkward between her shoulder blades, and the gentle touch is enough that a sob bursts it's way out of her.  "I'm sorry, I – I didn't mean to worry you, we were playing, and – and it went wrong."</p><p> </p><p>"Hey." She can feel the way his arm tightens protectively around her, and she feels like she's ten years old again, small and frightened and convinced she was five seconds from disaster at any moment. "Hey, it's okay.  You're here now.  You're here now, Georgie, and that's what matters."</p><p> </p><p>She sobs again, an ugly wrenching feeling, and tries to ignore the buzzing in her head telling her just how close she came this afternoon to not being here, and how that phone call to Alex's mum that she had just about caught the tail end of could have gone very differently.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, she feels better enough to detach herself from Oliver's shirt, scrub a hand over her face and say "right, I'm gonna go take a shower."</p><p> </p><p>She sorts herself out, getting rid of the mud and the river slime, and when she feels a bit more solid she walks back into the study.</p><p> </p><p>"We were playing Lady of Shalott," she says, wanting to get the explanations over and done with.  "I was the Lady, and had to float down past Camelot in the boat, like – like in the poem."</p><p> </p><p>It sounds like such a horribly stupid idea, now.  Georgie almost can't believe the words coming out of her mouth, but they're there, and they're true, and she has to keep talking, because if she stops then she won't be able to continue.</p><p> </p><p>"Sarah had the oars, and I suppose that she forgot to put them in?  I don't know, I was kind of distracted by the poem, and then – then Alex kissed me."</p><p> </p><p>Oliver closes his eyes for a second, not in the deliberate inquisitive blink of earlier, but just sheer parental exasperation overwhelming him.</p><p> </p><p>"So I think I might like girls, now?  Too?"</p><p> </p><p>"I suppose that's not entirely unexpected," he says, a little dryly.  Georgie supposes that's reasonable; in hindsight, yes, yes it was a little obvious that her childhood obsession with Darrell Rivers wasn't exactly heterosexual.</p><p> </p><p>"Right," she says, slow and a little sarcastic.  Jon's word, Jon's phrasing.  Unconsciously, she bites her bottom lip – it feels wrong, having him still affect her like that.  That's what drags her train of thought there, Jon's word sat heavy in her throat and pulling his crumpled face to the front of her mind, however much she may try to avoid it. "That's not all that happened."</p><p> </p><p>She bites her lip, and takes a second to plan her sentence.  "When I was stuck on the river, I ran into Jon.  That's how I got home safely."</p><p> </p><p>He nods, a little, and looks as if he's about to say something wise and parental but she cuts him off. "It- it didn't go well.  I shouted at him, he rolled his eyes… it was just like March all over again."</p><p> </p><p>The words scrape her throat on their way out.  Though it's still raw from her angry words to Jon, as she explains it all to Oliver all the myriad alternatives sink into her mind like burrs, as biting and vicious as everything she'd said.  She thinks maybe she should take it back; she thinks maybe it's too late and doesn't say a thing.</p><p> </p><p>"And I don't really know what to do now," she finishes, and Oliver sighs.  It feels like he's been doing that a lot recently.</p><p> </p><p>"To be honest, I wasn't overly concerned when you two stopped talking," he says.  It's slow, testing.  "Jon isn't a bad kid, but…" He sighs again and scrubs his eyes.  "I don't like that brother of his."</p><p> </p><p>Georgie knows what he means.  Elias gives her the creeps, always has done.  There's something coldly amphibious about his eyes, and the way they slide around the room like snot on a window, dull and grey and arrogant.  She can't believe he's related to Jon at all (Jon watches the room, yes, but there's a nervous excitement in his gaze that it's imp- no, difficult not to share).</p><p> </p><p>"I was going to ask you to avoid going over there anyway, before you two fell out.  With that in mind…"</p><p> </p><p>He trails off, but Georgie knows what's implied.  In a way, it's a relief not to have the looming threat of conversation hanging over her; in another, she's entirely aware that it's cowardice.  Georgie Barker isn't scared of anything, but she sees no point in chasing a road that only leads to misery. Even so, Oliver does have an unfortunate tendency towards isolation…</p><p> </p><p>"Are you just saying that because it's what you'd do in the circumstances?"</p><p> </p><p>Oliver shrugs, exhausted.  His eyes are loose and tired.  "Maybe?" He laughs a little there.  "But isn't all advice?"</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Biased though it might be, Georgie takes Oliver's advice firmly onboard.  She keeps her head down in the corridors, and her eyes on her own work in English lessons.  Her other two subjects are thankfully Jon-free, and outside of school it's mostly a matter of consistency and routine.</p><p> </p><p>The two years of sixth form pass uneventfully in this way and before she knows it she's sitting her A levels.  She can physically feel the music exam draining her soul, but other than that she feels uncharacteristically optimistic.</p><p> </p><p>Results day goes well, for the most part.  Georgie has two As and a B, hitting her offers and meaning she has her pick of universities.  She had only expected one A, so there's an element of surprise in the jubilance with which she cheers and thanks her teachers, before Alex pulls her off to analyse the marks further.</p><p> </p><p>Those three letters don't change, neat and bright against crisp yellow paper.  She can't quite believe it.</p><p> </p><p>It's while she's celebrating on the field that she catches Jon's eye properly for the first time since the river, and there's a sour feeling in the pit of her stomach.  It's a little like guilt, except it's too angry for that.</p><p> </p><p>His mouth twitches, and she thinks he might be about to speak- she turns away.  Jon hasn't spoken to her in two years, ignoring her in the corridor and sitting as far away from her as possible in the one class they share (he was never subtle – she saw him walk into the common room one free period and immediately turn on his heel when he saw her sat in the corner).  Georgie doesn't want to celebrate an exam with him that they didn't revise for together.  Jon hasn't spoken to her in two years.  He can manage two hours.</p><p> </p><p>"Hey Oliver, does this mean we can get Thai food tonight?" she asks loudly.  Her spine is ramrod stiff.  His gaze is cold against her back, like the stays of a corset keeping her poised and awkward.</p><p> </p><p>From the corner of her eye, she can see Jon's face fall, an identical brown envelope still scrunched in his hand.  Georgie tells herself she doesn't care.  She goes back to badgering her guardian for take out, and staring amazed at her own envelope. It's still pristine (but then she's always been better at taking care of things).</p><p> </p><p>Just as bull-headed as her, Jon remains stubbornly silent apart from that one moment of weakness.  She thinks that's the last she'll ever see of him, a masterclass in dejected arrogance across the school field, until Sasha tells her he's headed to the same university as her.</p><p> </p><p>It's like he's haunting her, a ghost she can't quite bring herself to bury, because after Georgie learns that delightful piece of information he's there every time she turns a corner.  They live in a small village, it's true, but running into Jon and his snide comments every time she runs down the corner shop for milk and biscuits is unlikely enough she asks Oliver how to tell if she's been cursed across the breakfast table.  It's absolutely brilliant.  Note the sarcasm.</p><p> </p><p>At the end of summer, Georgie moves out and into a flat with Alex.  It's not a particularly nice flat, but it's close enough to campus to make up for the yellowing kitchen tiles and scratched up furniture.</p><p> </p><p>What Georgie loves the most about their flat is her bedroom.  It's a tiny space compared to her bedroom at home, dull tan carpet and the scattershot scars of years of drawing pins in the dim cream walls, but for as long as they're renting this place she can paper them with posters for terrible movies or cover them with tinsel and fairy lights; all the sorts of things she'd be too embarrassed to try at ho- at<em> Oliver's </em>, because this room is hers and hers alone.</p><p> </p><p>Outside, the cars rumbling past send searchlights skittering over her bedroom walls.  She closes her eyes and thinks of peace, tries to think of Oliver's smile when she trips through the backdoor and Alex's arm around her shoulders on a lazy walk home, but her head is filled with silence and the slow slow bleed of water through wood.  Georgie closes her eyes, and tries to ignore the prickles of melancholy under her skin.</p><p> </p><p>In hindsight, that long lonely night may have been the first warning of a depression that eats its way through her first year of university. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>November is when it really begins to dig its teeth into her, shedding a chrysalis of skipped coffee dates and half finished coursework as she metamorphoses into something she doesn't want to recognise.  But there she is in the mirror, dead eyed and greasy skinned.  She isn't taking care of herself.   She doesn't really care.</p><p> </p><p>It takes longer and longer to drag herself out of bed every morning.  She's late for class, and something inside seems to insist that she might as well just skive - the coursework is all online anyway, right?</p><p> </p><p>She tries not to listen.  She does her best to make consistent notes and drinks an extra cup of coffee on her way in, but it doesn't seem to matter.  It's like she's been wrapped in cotton wool; everything is just a little too fuzzy to bother her, and slips out her grasp even as she moves towards it.  The more she misses, the more there is to catch up on, and the harder it is to force herself to do so.</p><p> </p><p>She used to come to work with Oliver on Baker Days.  He didn't like her in the morgue after the more violent deaths – always pushed her into his office while he was off analysing bruise colours and impact wounds – but one of the mortuary assistants had explained the embalming process to her on a particularly boring day.  They had to cut open the body and drain it before they could go any further; this is how Georgie feels.  Opened up and hollowed out, something fundamentally alive gone missing and she can't do anything but lay and watch it happening.</p><p> </p><p>It's a stupid, childish fancy, but some days Georgie presses one dry hand to her sternum and just <em> knows </em>that whatever it is that's meant to be behind it simply isn't. </p><p> </p><p>Stretched out on her bed, like a corpse on the mortuary table, Georgie thinks back to two years ago, under the tree.  <em> It would just keep going. </em></p><p> </p><p>The rest of the world would keep going, with or without her input.  The difference is, she doesn't think she wants to just live through it any more.  There isn't really anything much she wants right now.</p><p> </p><p>She wishes it would all stop.</p><p> </p><p>Lying on her bed, the world is reduced to the water stained white ceiling above her and the cool white sheets beneath.  Time passes, in an empty sort of way.  Georgie isn't really present for any of it.</p><p> </p><p>Alex stops inviting her out in the evenings, sticks to poking her head round the door to say she's missed another of Oliver's calls or yelling goodbye from the hall.   She's left her messages unread so long she doesn't dare open up the apps on the better days; on the worst days, she just sleeps.  Snow White in her glass coffin, dead and alive with her lips still tasting of apples.</p><p> </p><p>She stays on her bed, a broken doll in a sinking rowboat, and wonders how long it will take before the water pulls her under.</p><p> </p><p>Her whole body has been encased in plaster.  Nothing is done, and by now no effort is being made to change this, but packets still turn up outside her door with clockwork regularity.  If she could muster up the energy to walk over and collect them, she might even be able to catch up with the rest of the class.</p><p> </p><p>She leaves them to gather dust.</p><p> </p><p>She moves back in with Oliver again; it feels a bit like giving up.  Her bedroom isn't really hers, any more – there's discoloured patches where her posters used to hang, and the bed is as crisp and comfortable as a stranger's – but even with half her belongings in boxes it feels less empty than that flat.</p><p> </p><p>It feels like forever, but she gets back on her feet again – or at least, close enough to it that she thinks she'll be able to claw her way back eventually.  Catchup work is a slow and painful torture, but having it loom over her had been equally awful.</p><p> </p><p>It's a cold morning in February when the sky is grey and empty and the heating isn't working properly, when Georgie looks out the kitchen window and realises that she doesn't feel that terrible apathy eating away at her anymore.  There's no dramatic revelation – no sudden weight off her shoulders, no golden sunbeam carving its way towards her from the heavens – and it's not even a particularly nice day.  Georgie's ignored a thousand nicer.  But she looks out at the muggy weather and for the first time in a long time she feels something without needing to fight for it.</p><p> </p><p>She wants to chase that feeling down and hold it tight.  Quiet contentment blossoms into hope, and Georgie walks into the garden.  It's been raining; the ground is still waterlogged and muddy beneath the thin layer of grass, but for the half second before her feet hit the ground her happiness is solid and real.  She's okay.  She's better than okay; she's going to be happy.</p><p> </p><p>She had thought she'd lost that ability forever.   It's wonderful to know that she had been wrong.</p><p> </p><p>Then her feet hit the soggy ground, and she regrets coming outside immediately.  Cold mud squelches around her toes, and disgust bubbles out of her in horrified laughter.  She sprints back inside, squealing a little at every slimy step, and makes a cup of tea.</p><p> </p><p>The hems of her trousers are soggy, but the dew should soon evaporate now that she's inside.  Georgie pulls her chair over to the radiator with a horrible scraping sound; when Oliver comes downstairs he sees her making plans in the notes app of her phone with a slice of toast hanging out of her mouth.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie counts her options, and stubbornly fights her way back to the place she wants to be.  Unfortunately, it turns out that that place isn't her and Alex's flat anymore – maybe it never was, if she's being entirely honest.  Maybe she hadn't been able to give it a proper chance, what with the developing mental health crisis, but every time she looks at that boring white ceiling she hears the echoes of November. </p><p> </p><p>She officially moves out at the start of Summer, with a finality that surprises neither of them.  Alex helps her pack, and occasionally comments on the contents of her playlists, teasing her in a voice that falls ever so slightly flat.</p><p> </p><p>Nominally, they're still friends.  Georgie still quite likes her.  But there's a distance between them that wasn't there six months ago.</p><p> </p><p>She thinks they could repair it, given time and patience.  She doesn't think either of those will be present while she's still fighting off her thesis on the one side and her own brain on the other.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>So Georgie moves out again, and then she moves in, this time to a beautiful house half an hour away from campus.  From the architecture, it looks to be Victorian – as does the landlady.  Gertrude Robinson resembles any number of thin faced, grey haired Dickenesian spinsters, and from some of her harsher rules she may well have been.</p><p> </p><p>"No gentleman callers," she says, voice as clipped and controlled as everything else.</p><p> </p><p>"What about Professor Dekker?" asks one particularly brave student, a girl Georgie thinks she recognises from classes with the professor in question.  Her hairclips are red, with ladybirds at the end, and just loose enough to move ever so slightly when she talks, like the bugs are nodding in agreement.  She's only stood a few metres away, in the doorway to the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>Gertrude's lips thin.  "He isn't a gentleman, or a caller.  He's an annoyance, is what he is."</p><p> </p><p>There's a ripple of laughter, but Gertrude hadn't seemed to be joking.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie thinks about her own inescapable annoyance.  She had been fortunate, the last year, in that Jon hasn't really been in any of her smaller classes, but her luck has to run out eventually.  She had only narrowly avoided a group presentation with him back in October, and the situation still haunts her nightmares.</p><p> </p><p>Despite her aversion to working together, she can't help but admit that Jon makes some fantastic points in class discussions.  While they might not actually be working together, they've had more than a few intense debates across the classroom since Georgie had returned from Oliver's.  He's as passionate as ever, hands flailing away as he puts together his responses, and Georgie would be lying if she claimed she didn't enjoy it.</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes his rebuttals worm their way into her own work; she isn't sure how she feels about that.  It isn't as if it's his thoughts in her voice, but she knows that she wouldn't be pushing herself nearly so far if he wasn't there to push back.  It's nothing like their old dynamic (before, they'd been a team; before, Jon's expectations had been something she'd welcomed rather than fought against), but she finds herself looking forward to it nevertheless.</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes Georgie wants to continue those debates after class; drag Jon down to the coffee shop she's been working at and absolutely shred his analysis of Tale of Two Cities for the idealistic rubbish it is before her shift begins.  But that ship has already sailed, and she doesn't think she can entice him back with criticisms of Charles Darnay's cowardice.  She doesn't think she has much left to offer, and she makes her peace with that.</p><p> </p><p>Jon isn't the only familiar face in her English class this year.  It turns out that the girl who had asked Gertrude about Dekker is named Melanie King, and she'd like to walk to class with Georgie.</p><p> </p><p>"We do live in the same house," she'd pointed out.  "It's only practical."</p><p> </p><p>Melanie's habitual forthrightness is just as strong when she tries to be friendly.  Georgie can tell that she struggles, sometimes, to keep a lid on it; blunt frustration slipping out disguised as snark and what gets called "a strong personality", but Georgie has enough practice ignoring acerbic comments, and for the most part Melanie uses this, leans into the perceived confidence and plays it up to redirect conversations.  There's a gravity to the shorter girl.  Something about the way she talks, the way she listens, pulls everyone else into orbit around her.  It's something special to hear her speak, something even better to have those intense brown eyes fixed firmly on her.</p><p> </p><p>Her words aren't all that Georgie picks up on.  She has crooked teeth – Georgie notices them when she laughs – and a habit of running her tongue along them when she thinks.  Her eyes crinkle up when she's happy, and when she gets angry her smile stays, a sharp and cocky stubbornness as she tears into some new critic's mistakes.  Melanie King is an excellent person to share a class with.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie gets used to seeing her immediately in a crowd.  It isn't difficult, however short she is. Her eyes are always drawn to her like a compass finding North, and the wide grin she's met with whenever she follows that tug is like fireworks bursting beneath her ribs.</p><p> </p><p>Melanie wears the same cheap leather jackets as Georgie, baggy Liverpool shirts and jeans.  She's a friendly girl, when she wants to be, and Georgie gets used to the feeling of loose material swinging into her when her new friend greets her with a hug.  </p><p> </p><p>Slowly but surely, Melanie wraps Georgie into her routine, and it soon becomes unthinkable to pass a single day without that quickfire grin and easy intimacy.  The emptiness of last year still skulks around her ankles, but Georgie knows that feeling now, can recognise it approaching, and she adamantly refuses to let it ruin yet another relationship.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Melanie starts seeking her out after class, inviting her to study groups and giggling together over cheap coffee in Gertrude's draughty kitchen.  It's by no means a one-sided affection; some mornings when Georgie hates to drag herself out of bed, it's the thought of debating Melanie in English that day that gets her up and going, and when she writes essays she always makes sure to share links to some of the more… interesting Jstor articles so they can talk about them later.</p><p> </p><p>It's one of those conversations they're having today, sat on the sun warmed earth in the garden with paper splayed around them like the petals of some bizarre flower.  Melanie has no less than a dozen highlighters scattered around her and in the spine of her folder; every so often, she bites the cap off one to highlight a line she finds particularly significant.  There's quite clearly a system there, but she's vigorous enough that it always ends up blotting at the start of the phrase, before it can taper off into the more even lines of the typed out paragraph.  At the same time, she's taking notes, pen darting there and away like the quick flash of a kingfisher through the reeds before she goes back to the extract.  Georgie's own single essay feels almost insignificant in contrast.</p><p> </p><p>There is a perfectly good bench behind the pair of them, but there's something about a golden September afternoon that draws them both to the floor.</p><p> </p><p>"Hey," Melanie says, sticking her biro into her ponytail as she talks, "could you check the phrasing here for me?"</p><p> </p><p>"Of course," Georgie says, but rather than handing her notebook over, Melanie just scooches closer until the book in her lap is visible to both of them.  Georgie leans forward to read it, and is hit by the scent of Melanie's apple perfume as she struggles to read the other girl's unusually jagged handwriting.  It's tall and spiking, almost carved into the page with the force that she uses, and if Georgie hadn't seen her writing those very lines just a moment ago she would have sworn that Melanie was holding a deep and personal grudge against the paper.</p><p> </p><p>Her hand brushes against Georgie's as she points to the sentence in question.</p><p> </p><p>"It seems fine to me."</p><p> </p><p>"Okay," Melanie says, and turns the page.  "How about this one?"</p><p> </p><p>This page doesn't have any English notes on.  What it does have, is large red highlighter letters scrawled across the middle.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Georgie Barker will you go out with me? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Georgie glances over at her from beneath her eyelashes, notices Melanie's growing blush and honestly can't believe her luck.</p><p> </p><p>"Of course," she says, and would have said more if the sound of someone tramping up the gravel path towards the back gate hadn't intruded.</p><p> </p><p>They both freeze like deer in the headlights.</p><p> </p><p>It's a bit stupid, really, because there's no reason they shouldn't be sat there enjoying the sunshine, but Melanie grabs Georgie's wrist, tight, as if to pull her out of the way.  Out of the way of what?  Whoever it is will see them as soon as they open the gate.  But an animal fear sits rabbit-like in Melanie's eyes, and the pens, still scattered across the grass, look like the evidence for some ridiculous crime.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie places one warm hand over where Melanie's long fingers wrap like a bracelet.  She huffs a laugh and relaxes, just in time for the latch to scratch open and whoever it is to walk in.</p><p> </p><p>"And what are you two doing?" Gertrude's voice is as sharp as ever, but something about her seems ever so slightly more rumpled than usual.  As she talks, one long strand of iron grey hair drops loose from her bun.  Without pausing, she tucks it behind her ear, but that action is so normal that the stern-faced woman seems more human than ever.</p><p> </p><p>"Studying," Georgie says, without a trace of hesitation.  "Melanie was helping me with my essay."</p><p> </p><p>"Hmmph." She stalks inside, but her face softens ever so slightly when she catches sight of Melanie's hand, still circling Georgie's wrist. "Stay focused."</p><p> </p><p>It takes all of a second after the door swings shut before the two girls burst into giggles.</p><p> </p><p>"Stay focused," Melanie mimics.  "She was actually nice!"</p><p> </p><p>"I never thought I'd see the day," says Georgie through her laughter.  "Whatever shall we do with Gertrude's approval?"</p><p> </p><p>"I can think of a few things." Melanie tucks a stand of hair behind her ear, echoing Gertrude, and Georgie snorts.  "You know the coffee place near Keay's?"</p><p> </p><p>"The bookshop?"  She knows the one she means.  Georgie's been working in Canyon Cafe recently, but if it's a toss up between taking Melanie there and facing the teasing of her coworkers, or simply continuing as usual, then… the right answer is obvious.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The year continues, autumn air becoming sharp and cold, frost glittering on the grass in the mornings.  They don’t sit outside in the afternoons anymore, but that’s okay too.  Georgie listens to the wind howling outside with her feet tucked up under her and her head on Melanie’s shoulder, makes a mug of bitter coffee along with her own tea, and folds Melanie into her life as if she had always been there.  There’s nothing dead about this winter.  It’s still.  Waiting.  There’s something small and bright beneath the soil, patiently waiting to become something more.  It isn’t secret, just hidden.  Intimate.</p><p> </p><p>Melanie is painting Georgie's nails.  She bought this colour at Primark, or maybe Melanie did - its generic, cheap and tacky, but the turquoise is cheerful and it dries quickly, and there's something lovely in Melanie's offer to hold her hand and brighten everything up.</p><p> </p><p>They're sat in the bathroom, so they don't stink Gertrude's house up.  There isn't much room, Georgie sat against the bath and Melanie against the door.  Melanie's hunched over her hand and frowning in concentration, but every now and then as they talk she looks up and smiles at her.  Each and every time, Georgie is mesmerised by her crooked teeth and the gleam in her eyes; she thinks she could look at her forever.</p><p> </p><p>The conversation starts off light – the worst things to put on pasta and complaining about that one annoying song on the radio – but something pushes them into more and more personal topics.  Georgie hadn't ever considered the bathroom with its flickering light and insistently dripping tap to be particularly intimate, but something about the cramped space must be, because she's telling Melanie about the depressive episode last year and it isn't even awkward.  <em> Easy </em> is the wrong word for it, but Melanie's sympathetic nods don't feel at all forced.</p><p> </p><p>Melanie finishes telling her about a horrifically terrible high school presentation, complete with rotten fruit and lost flashcards, and then it's Georgie's turn to share.  They haven't actually been taking turns, of course, but she'd feel bad if she wasn't making the effort.</p><p> </p><p>"What happened with you and Jon?"</p><p> </p><p>She feels the smile freeze on her face, but… Georgie is a woman of honour.  Besides, maybe it'll be good to get it off her chest.  There are words that she wants to use, has been wanting to use for a while now, and it would feel dishonest, almost, to start that conversation without finishing this one.</p><p> </p><p>She sighs, and for the first time in years, she explains what happened.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Jon had kissed her.  Jon had kissed her!</p><p> </p><p>They had been at some party; celebrating nothing in particular, just the usual sort of teenage get together that would end with badly dancing in the kitchen to eighties pop and fumbling their way home around midnight, still giggling, as the houses loomed around them gelatinously huge in the darkness.  Georgie only really remembers this one was at Alex's house because when Jon had pulled away, lips still slightly parted, she'd caught sight of a truly awful school photo of her friend, all braces and mismatched hair ribbons, and it had taken all that she had not to burst out laughing.</p><p> </p><p>"Was that alright?" Jon asks.  He steps away a little, and she finds she misses the invasive warmth of his hands on her shoulders.  He's nervous - it's endearing.  He bites his lip, and her eyes flick down with the movement.</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah- yeah, it was."  Her head's spinning a little.  She thinks that might have been Jon's first kiss; he just "doesn't do that sort of thing", and Georgie has to wonder why she was the exception.  She likes it, though.  It <em> had </em>been a good kiss, hesitant and sweet and so, so very Jon.</p><p> </p><p>He relaxes into a proper smile. "Right."</p><p> </p><p>She grins back at him, rolling her shoulders just for something to do with her arms.  Her hands are full with excited energy; it's never been so difficult to contain it.  She can already tell that if it wasn't for her heels she'd be stood on tiptoe right now.</p><p> </p><p>"Can I-"</p><p> </p><p>He blinks once, considering, and jumps in before she has the chance to finish talking.  "Yeah- uh-"</p><p> </p><p>She takes his hands and pulls him closer, puts her lips on his, and leans into the kiss, deeper this time, the humming in her ears growing and silencing the sounds of the party in the rest of the house.  She can feel that same smile on his lips, matches it with her own, and lets her tongue-</p><p> </p><p>He steps back.  There's a gleam of something in his eyes (just what, she can't quite tell, but it isn't something positive and already her feet feel anchored to the ground).</p><p> </p><p>"Georgie-"</p><p> </p><p>"I'm sorry-"</p><p> </p><p>They're talking into each other again, but it's nothing like the quick familiarity of a moment before she ruined it.  It's stilted and wrong and physically painful.  Georgie isn't used to talking to Jon like this.</p><p> </p><p>His hands twitch, his fingers curling into his jeans like the death throes of some misshapen spider.  "I should probably tell you before <em> that </em>happens again."</p><p> </p><p>He emphasises the <em> "that" </em>like he's referring to something long-dead and mouldering at the back of a locker, and Georgie's mature enough to admit that the rejection stings.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm asexual," he continues, stepping carefully around her inner turmoil.  "I don't really… <em> do </em>that sort of kissing."</p><p> </p><p>Oh. <em> Oh. </em>He doesn't hate her then.  She can already hear Oliver's voice in the back of her head chiding her for not establishing a boundary before they started.  "So if I were to kiss you again," she says carefully, "the way we did the first time?"</p><p> </p><p>"I'd like that," he says.  So she does.</p><p> </p><p>A significant amount of time later, she strolls into the kitchen feeling slightly dazed.  Her lipstick is smeared – she can feel it – the once crisp black edges blurring over brown skin like burnt paper, and the same blurry feeling pervades her every movement.  It's like dancing, except her feet aren't even moving.  It's like music, except her mind is still caught in the overwhelming swell of an orchestra, even here in the one room without a speaker.  There is a squirming sort of joy buried just within her, and it is trying desperately to escape.  </p><p> </p><p>Distracted in her happiness, she walks into the countertop, polished granite digging nastily into her side. She hisses in pain.</p><p> </p><p>"You good George?" Alex asks, lazing casually against the same counter.  </p><p> </p><p>"Jon just kissed me," she says, a little blankly.  Then again, through a growing smile: "Jon just kissed me!"</p><p> </p><p>"Congrats," Alex says.  The words almost seem to fall out of her mouth as she lounges indolently across a pair of high stools at the kitchen counter, plaits already untied and coming loose, a tall plastic cup of breadsticks in one hand and a glass of something that looks like orange juice in the other.  "Want a drink to celebrate?"</p><p> </p><p>"Thanks."</p><p> </p><p>Georgie accepts the empty stool next to her friend, and the vodka when she offers it.  She knows Jon wouldn't approve – there's a reason he had lived with his grandmother at first and then more recently with his half-brother Elias rather than the parents most obvious in their absence – but it's given Alex a lazy sort of confidence that she desperately wants for herself.</p><p> </p><p>She sips at the drink, and feels her brain begin to stop buzzing quite so loudly.  She looks round the small neat kitchen, notes that they're alone, and says in a voice that comes out a lot louder than she had intended, "I'm gonna ask him out."</p><p> </p><p>Alex laughs, and sips her own drink.  A little slops over the side when she sits it back down, but she mops it up with a sleeve. "You think?"</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah," she says.  "What's the best way to do that?"</p><p> </p><p>Alex laughs again, the sound clattering off the wall.  She's drunk, Georgie realises.  "Hell if I know," she scoffs.  She puts a breadstick in her mouth, lets it hang out like she's James Dean.  "Been a long time since <em> I've </em>impressed anyone."</p><p> </p><p>It's a melancholy statement, but as she says it Alex jumps up and starts rummaging through the freezer, humming loud and tunelessly.  She comes out with arms full of cheese sticks and heads straight for the oven.  Even as Alex avoids eye contact her words are out and rattling through Georgie's head.  She wants to say something, but she realises too late that even as that unbearable buzzing has quieted, any words of comfort she might have found fled along with the shake in her knees and the blur at the edges of her vision.  So she stays silent, and nudges her friend over to help pile supermarket brand takeout onto a baking tray.  Their hands brush occasionally when they reach into the bag, and as the tray fills up Georgie develops a steady sort of determination.  She's going to find Jon, and she's going to impress him.</p><p> </p><p>The party continues as the night draws on, spilling out of the house and into the garden as more people arrive.  Eventually, there's a fair sized group of them sat out on the lawn. Alex had managed to dig out a rug from somewhere in the house, but it's slightly too small for the amount of people piling onto it and they all end up squished together.  Its cramped enough that a few people abandon the idea completely and go to stand over on the patio </p><p> </p><p>It becomes a sort of pride thing to be the last ones standing, and they start coming up with increasingly ridiculous dares to knock people off.  It starts off easy – Sasha has to eat a tablespoon of mayonnaise, and Alex fobs taking the rubbish out onto Vincent Yang, much to everyone's disappointment – but as the game continues, an element of actual difficulty appears.  Marie Balandin pulls off several perfect handsprings in a row, but somehow doesn't notice the flowerbeds until she lands in them, causing an argument as to whether or not it counts as a success; Joshua Gilllespie ends up with freezer burn.  By the time they get to Georgie for the second time, she knows it's going to be something hard.</p><p> </p><p>"I dare you to walk the roof," says Mike, electric blue eyes fixed on the wall that runs along the bottom of the gardens on Oates Lane.  The wall is about a mile of unpainted red brick, a similar height to Georgie herself.  It's a common dare for local teenagers, and most have attempted to walk it at some point - some entrepreneurial soul covered their segment in chicken wire, trying to fend off the intrusion, but anyone could have predicted that would only make things worse.  After all, there was nothing to liven up a boring Saturday evening like watching a mate take careful ballerina steps along the wall, especially if they had to duck around obstacles.</p><p> </p><p>Though the most risky challenge of the evening, she cant see herself turning it down with any grace.  In fact, this is precisely the moment she's been waiting for.  Jon went in a few minutes ago after refusing to eat the apple Lionel Elliot had found after six months in his jacket pocket, but she's certain he'll look out when she's walking the wall.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie is probably a little drunker than is wise, for this.  She thinks - she's fairly certain, at least - that her balance remains about the same as usual, give or take a certain amount of fuzziness as she makes her way up off the picnic rug.  If Oliver hears about this, she'll be grounded for a month of Sundays.</p><p> </p><p>She isn't scared of Oliver.  And she isn't scared of the wall, or of Mike Crew's snide little smile.</p><p> </p><p>Unbuckling her spangly heels, Georgie sets her bare feet down on the damp grass.  It glitters in the light spilling out from the kitchen, but the dew is as cold as it is pretty. There's a wolf whistle from the patio, and a round of applause echoes around the garden as the others realise that yes, Georgie Barker is walking the wall in eleven pm darkness.  A small part of her hopes that Jon is among them, that she's caught his attention.  Another part hopes he doesn't look out of the window until she's already up and balanced on the wall.  Either way, Alex had been right.  She wants to impress him.</p><p> </p><p>Their eyes stay on her as she crosses the lawn, and she makes sure to put a little extra swing in her hips; calm, confident, and completely in control.  No one was ever hurt by a little bravado. Ever a performer, Georgie revels in the attention, lets it wash over her like sunlight.  In that moment, she almost doesn't care who's looking as long as someone is.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie gets up on the wall with comparatively little dignity.  There's a few snickers, but she gives her audience an exaggerated bow and begins to walk.</p><p> </p><p>She's doing well – the red brick rough under her bare feet – when she gets bored.  Confidence blossoms and overripens into arrogance, and yet again, Georgie makes things more difficult for herself.</p><p> </p><p>She adds a dip.  Too easy.  She does another anyway.</p><p> </p><p>She dances in time to the tinny music still filtering through the patio doors, but it's difficult to hear and she quickly loses patience.</p><p> </p><p>She jumps a little.  She wobbles a little on the landing, but it's fine. She's fine.  There's a cheer from the lawn, and she spots a gangling figure begin to jog closer.  It's too far to make out a face, but…</p><p> </p><p>She's been watching Jon chase after her since year five, when they were both angrily grief stricken and lonely and hated everyone else's company.  She knows what he looks like running.</p><p> </p><p>She jumps again, higher and further, and this time she feels the wall slip beneath her.</p><p> </p><p>She catches herself just in time, but her shin mutters grumpy protest, only slightly dulled by the vodka, and she knows it'll be bruised tomorrow.</p><p> </p><p>She laughs.  The cold night air bites her cut, and she keeps walking, nearly out of Alex's garden by now.</p><p> </p><p>"Georgie!"</p><p> </p><p>She looks back, staggering slightly as she turns.  She was right; it's Jon.</p><p> </p><p>"What?" From the look on his face, the word comes out louder than she intends.</p><p> </p><p>"This is a terrible idea," he hisses, as tactful as ever.   The moonlight shimmers in his black hair, and Georgie thinks about how she'd wanted to draw him outside.  Well, she's certainly succeeded now. "Come back inside."</p><p> </p><p>"Mike dared me," she points out.  Even as she says it she realises that she doesn't care; Mike Crew is insignificant.  She's achieved what she set out for, but Jon's chiding her like a little girl and it makes her want to walk further, just to prove that she can. "If I don't at least make it to the next garden I'll look like a coward, and-"</p><p> </p><p>"We all know you're never scared of anything." It's true, but the snappish way he says it is matter of fact and dubious all at once.  He doesn't look impressed; Georgie feels embarrassed and that only serves to make her dig her heels in further.</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p> </p><p>He rolls his eyes. That does it.</p><p> </p><p>She turns and begins walking again.</p><p> </p><p>"Georgie!"</p><p> </p><p>She ignores him.</p><p> </p><p>"Georgie, Oliver will-"</p><p> </p><p>But she doesn't get the pleasure of hearing what Oliver will do, because she jumps again – and fumbles the landing.</p><p> </p><p>Her feet skid through crumbling brick, invisible in the dark, and she goes down, down, barely time to scream before she's on the ground.</p><p> </p><p>Even then, she might have been fine if she had landed in the garden, soft grass cushioning her fall.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn't. </p><p> </p><p>Georgie lands in the alleyway.  The ground is uneven and sharp with gravel, and when her leg lands under her she hears a sickening crack.  The split second she is aware of is agonising pain, cut in and out with jagged shadows and the distant sound of music.</p><p> </p><p>Then her head hits the ground a moment later, and everything goes mercifully dark.</p><p> </p><p>Oliver tells her years later that he had been afraid she would never wake up again.  Too many of his reports were written on drunk teenagers involved in stupid accidents; when Jon had called him the forms had flashed through his head as if he had already filled them out.</p><p> </p><p>Fortunately, those forms were never signed.  Georgie had come to in the hospital, her head fuzzy and her chest bubbling over with shame.  Waking up in hospital is awful, always, but waking up with an ignored warning still echoing through your ears is far worse.</p><p> </p><p>She had been quiet, avoiding eye contact and mumbling her understanding as the doctor had explained her leg was broken, fractured in multiple places and unlikely to be healed for months.  It <em> had </em> healed of course, but even today Georgie can't really trust it or the way it twinges in bad weather.</p><p> </p><p>To his credit, perhaps, Jon had visited her afterwards.  Only once, but… a second time would have been welcomed by neither of them.</p><p> </p><p>He walks through the door like a challenge, chest stiff as if he expects to be shot, eyes wide and worried.  "I told you to get down," he says, before she even has the chance to greet him.  He plonks himself down on the edge of the bed without asking, careful to avoid her injured leg.  His hands are less careful, coming close to hitting the nearby wall as he gestures angrily. "It was a terrible idea; I fail to understand why you risked your neck over a stupid dare, and I can't believe you tried it drunk.  Really, Georgie, I thought you had common sense.  You shouldn't have-"</p><p> </p><p>"I know, alright?" Georgie snaps, because she does.  She shouldn't have walked the wall, she shouldn't have done it drunk, and she shouldn't have ignored Jon when he told her not to.  But she had, and she doesn't appreciate him coming into her room while she's in pain and lecturing her on why she deserves this.  Jon's dark eyes stare at her like a bug under a microscope; her head hurts, her leg hurts and she wants him to leave.  "So you don't need to keep going on about it."</p><p> </p><p>His lips part, like she's just knocked all the air out of him, stumbling through the shapes of words he doesn't stay, while she stares angrily back at him.  Her cheeks are burning, whether from shame or from anger she doesn't know.  "I - I was just saying."</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah, well, you didn't have to." She should have left it there, but she's angry, and in pain,  and she feels horribly, horribly stupid for failing so badly to impress Jon in the first place.  Georhie didn't have to continue, but then Jon didn't have to enter her room carrying an accusation. "God, didn't you ever learn when to shut up?"</p><p> </p><p>It's under her breath, but Jon catches it, ears as annoyingly sharp as ever. "That was unnecessary."</p><p> </p><p>He's right; it was.  Usually Georgie's the one fighting people off for telling Jon to stop talking.  She wouldn't even be so annoyed if what he was saying wasn't true; she feels like he's backed her into a corner.  She doesn't have a leg to stand on, she thinks bitterly, and doesn't apologise as she ploughs ahead.  "I wouldn't have fallen if it wasn't for your unnecessary warnings."</p><p> </p><p>"That's absurd."</p><p> </p><p>"Says the guy who came and yelled distractions at me while I was trying not to fall off."</p><p> </p><p>His nose twitches like an angry squirrel.  "It's my fault now? Sorry, I don't remember telling you to make poor choices."</p><p> </p><p>She's been leaning forward as they argue, but when he says that she can't bear to look at him any longer.  Georgie flings herself back so fast that she bangs her already aching head against the headboard.  "No, of course you wouldn't."</p><p> </p><p>He opens his mouth again, to protest, maybe, or to continue, but she cuts him off.  "Just go, Jon.  I don't really want to talk to you either."</p><p> </p><p>The argument hadn't ended there, had stretched out and forced itself into something scowling and twisted that took up the whole of Georgie's bedroom, but that had been about where she'd stopped paying attention to exactly what she was saying and it had blown out of proportion.  They hadn't truly spoken since, and while Georgie was no longer horribly, achingly angry with him anymore, a certain level of indignation still remained.  She wasn't going to be the first person to break the uneasy silence.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Aside from accidentally spying on Gertrude or sharing secrets and nail varnish in the bathroom, they also fall into a routine of sharing meals together.  Their routines develop around each other, and Georgie gets used to talking to the other girl late into the evening.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's nice.  Cosy.  There's a warm sort of comfort in the domesticity that blossoms between them while cooking, bickering over the correct amount of coriander to add to pasta and moving around each other to search for ingredients, and however dreadfully her day goes Georgie knows Melanie will be willing to hear about it while racing to chop the carrots before her.  They don't cook anything fancy, lacking both the time and the money, but the food always tastes better when they cook it together.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie has a habit of adding far too much chilli powder to everything – coffee, sandwiches, popcorn – and Georgie can't bear peas, but somehow they come up with something edible for both of them.  They make eye contact across the rickety wooden table, conversation peppered with the staccato clatter of cutlery, and as a sense of peace washes over her, Georgie realises that this is it.  These evenings together are everything she's been missing; she wants to impress Melanie, of course she does, but Georgie wants to make her smile, wants to watch her lips round into a delighted gasp.  She doesn't want to drag Melanie out to watch her do something stupid and reckless, doesn't feel that burning itch in her heels with the same destructive urgency.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She looks down, suddenly intent on slicing noodles needlessly tiny.  When she looks back up, Melanie is still looking over at her, as if Georgie is the most interesting thing in the room, despite the pair bickering over by the kettle and Naomi rummaging through the fridge.  She notices Georgie looking at her, laughs and tilts her glass.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They're only sat in Gertrude's cluttered kitchen that smells of fish half the time and old cheese the other half, but in that moment Georgie wouldn't trade it for any fancy restaurant in the world.  She's quiet for the rest of the meal, thinking about it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I think I'll head up early," she says.  Georgie plans to take her thoughts to bed with her, find a decent explanation and slip into it the next morning as she dresses.  Telling Melanie she feels like safety and freedom all at once is perhaps a little too intense for a relationship less than a month old.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She doesn't get the chance.  "Me too," Melanie says, and follows her up.  Their hands brush on the way through the door, and in a moment of impulsiveness Georgie grabs her hand and squeezes tight, once.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She lets go and walks up the stairs.  She can feel Melanie's presence behind her more with every creak of the old wood, her skin prickling uncomfortably under a gaze that she knows must be there.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The hallway light flickers in their presence, same as always. They stop at their landing, but it feels intimate now in a way it hadn't before.  The memory of Melanie's freckled hand wrapped in hers is still fresh in her mind, and as Georgie turns to leave she feels that same hand brush against her fingers again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie closes her hand around Georgie's, and Georgie stops stock-still.  That same gravity is as present as ever, and she can feel it pulling her back towards the other girl.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She turns around.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie's brown eyes are dark in the dim light, their usual warmth hidden by glittered reflections.  She tugs her into her, her free hand coming onto Georgie's hip and resting there.  The weight of her there feels right, feels like something Georgie's been missing all her life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Hey," she says, soft so as to not disturb the others.  This close, her words hang warm in the air between them.  This close, Georgie could count every one of Melanie's eyelashes if she wanted to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Hey," Georgie says back, and then she leans in and they're kissing, slow and sweet at first and then with burning intensity, every inch of them alive with desire.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgie steps closer, feet slotting neatly around Melanie's like the teeth of a key in a lock.  She feels Melanie drop her hand, doesn't have time to complain before it's placed right above the other hand on the small of her back.  She leans into the kiss, seeking, hungry.  Something about Melanie is magnetic, inevitable in its reaction, and Georgie can't do anything but touch her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She wants her; wants her closer, wants her always, wants her the way a river longs for the swell of the sea.  Still kissing her, Georgie follows Melanie into the dark of her bedroom.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It becomes a common occurrence.  Not every night, but enough that Melanie's dark hair and navy bedspread become a familiar sight in the mornings, and Georgie's own belongings begin a slow pilgrimage out of her room.  Like as not, most afternoons she's in Melanie's room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That includes today.  Melanie is out (working on a presentation in the library), but the radiator in Georgie's room is broken and she'd been bullied into accepting the use of Melanie's desk by the window.  The book she's meant to be annotating is pinned open in her lap with a spine full of highlighter and pencil, but if she's being honest there really isn't any work being done.  Perhaps that's for the best – when Melanie rushes through the door she notices immediately.  It's always a pleasure to see her girlfriend, but the concern on her face overshadows that emotion immediately.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Hey, babe, what's-"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"That friend of yours, the annoying one who you aren't talking to-" Melanie stops to suck in air, one hand still gesturing for a sentence that was never started.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Jon?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"He's collapsed.  He was showing me the powerpoint, and he just- he looked grey, and then he went down.  I thought you'd want to know."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She had thought right.  "Where is he?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"They phoned an ambulance, but he's still sat near Chaucer.  You know where that is?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She's throwing her stuff in her bag and halfway out the door before the question even fully registers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She finds him – them, there's a guy sat next to him, broad-shouldered and concerned  – on the bench outside Chaucer, just as promised.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Is he alright?" She asks, panting slightly.  It's a stupid question – he clearly doesn't look right, brown skin tinged an ashy grey.  His eyes are ever so slightly unfocused, and he leans against the man sat next to him like he needs the support.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Jon Sims she knows always had perfect posture.  He used to joke about it, his bones "an alloy of titanium and spite" his grandmother had lectured into him, but the man in front of her seems not to share those memories of a seemingly miraculous ability not to bend under the weight of a backpack full of far too many hardback novels.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man sat next to him – his friend, she realises; she's been replaced – frowns at her.  His nose scrunches up when he does, and he has to push his glasses back on (dull blue with sellotape coated arms), but he's no less intimidating for it.  Something small and lonely curls up inside her, but guilt and spite and all the myriad in between pushes her on.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She barrels on.  "Melanie told me you were hurt."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jon doesn't say anything, face drawn up in uncertainty.  Still unfocused, his eyes flicker across to his friend next to him, who squeezes his hand and cuts in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"He has a concussion," he says tightly, as if he doesn't think he should be saying this.  Maybe he shouldn't.  Georgie probably doesn’t have the right to worry about him like this anymore, probably shouldn’t be asking questions, but she has to know.  That’s always been how they’ve taken care of each other, Jon researching teenage grief and Georgie sharing recipes after Elias had simply just decided, one day, that at fifteen Jon should be taking care of his own meals.  She doesn’t know how to turn that off.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As he speaks, Jon gingerly raises his free hand to touch the back of his head.  It's painful, if his reaction is anything to go by. "Stop that," the other man says, grabbing his wrist, and strangely enough Jon complies.  His smile is a little wonky, but he does put his hand down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Okay, Martin," Jon says softly.  It's extremely out of character – but then, what would she know?  They fit well together, Jon relaxing for once into easy camaraderie, and Georgie isn’t jealous of this man, of the warmth in his brown eyes and the way it all looks so easy, but she wishes… she doesn’t know what she wishes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You wouldn't happen to have any paracetamol?" Jon asks, none of that softness present when he speaks to her. "Only, I think I should be able to concentrate to have this conversation."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Uh- I think so." She fishes around in the front pocket of her bag, finds it under the sanitiser next to her purse.  "Here."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Thanks."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It goes silent.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A cyclist whirs past.  Georgie awkwardly shifts her bag from one shoulder to the other.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"We haven't spoken in a while." There's a pinched look on Jon's face, tight and pained.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"No." She swallows. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He spreads his hands, sarcastic as ever.  "Well?  Do your worst, Doctor Barker."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She has to bite back the instinctive sharp reply.  She came to make sure he was okay, not to make things worse between them, but it's like choking down broken glass.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think they’ll do a better job with that at A&amp;E.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?”</span>
  <span><br/>
<br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” She sighs, pulls a hand through her hair.  The sound of an approaching engine is a welcome relief, but she still doesn’t feel like she’s succeeded. “I should leave you to it.  Can I come by tomorrow, maybe, if you’re up to it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His eyes narrow, judging her intentions.  She stares him down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then he sighs, tired and in pain. “Yeah, why not.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's more of a statement than a question.  She’ll take what she can get.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgie isn't sure that she wants to go.  She does, of course, but also she doesn't – it's complicated.  She is a well rounded woman of depth and maturity, and… she was entirely aware that she was making excuses.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"The thing is, we haven't spoken in five years.  Is it really worth ending that for a couple of years of awkward acquaintanceship?" She sits back against the wall, and the bed creaks beneath her.  It sounds as tired as she feels.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Is it worth </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>doing that, though?" Melanie tucks her hair behind her ear and continues. "Me, I hold grudges.  There's a dinner lady who told me off in year five for taking extra salad who I'll never forgive – no one was eating it!  It was going limp and soggy in the corner! – and I'm okay with that.   It's sort of satisfying, really."  Melanie blinks a few times, chasing her train of thought to its distant conclusion.  "But you need to decide whether you want to have Jon as a friend, because the issue here is the indecision."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgie swallows, and nods in agreement.  "You're… you're right, Melanie. Thank you."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And with that said, she pecks the other girl on the cheek and heads out in search of Jon.  She's going to put things to rights.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She wouldn't have known Jon where was in the flat if his roommate hadn't told her when he buzzed her in.  He's a motionless shape in the dimly lit living room, looking oddly small and dull for someone so brash.  He's wearing a chequered black and white shirt, like the tiles on a disco floor, and strikingly green trousers – the eccentricity of his outfit only adds to the way he seems to shrink where the light hits him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She hadn't wanted to disturb him.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>Injuries need rest </span>
  </em>
  <span>Oliver's voice reminds her – but maybe she's just making excuses.  Georgie isn't scared, she's never scared, but the idea of approaching him and deliberately carving a hole in his recovery to slot herself into with all the arrogance that that demands, sits heavy on her shoulders.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She stays frozen in the doorway for a longtime, watching the dustmotes dance through the sunbeams above him.  Georgie considers leaving – his brain can't very well heal if she keeps poking at it with the fragments of their relationship – but just before she turns to go, his eyes open and he sees her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For a moment, neither of them move.  She remembers him staring at her from across grey water, under the soft golden light of Alex's front room, a hundred times in a crowded classroom and always with a characteristic hungry brightness.   None of that is present today; Jon just looks tired.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I'm sorry." Jon looks up at her from where he's lying across the sofa, and now she's stuck.  His feet are on the armrest; she'd never known him do that before.  His pupils are still blown, bottomless pits in shattered amber, but his voice is as controlled as ever, if a little more subdued.  "I understand now, I think.  It's frustrating to be lectured when injured - I was too busy being concerned you were hurt to actually demonstrate that concern."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgie swallows down awkward laughter.  She can feel all the ways this conversation can go wrong like roots twisting through her skin – she's anticipated this for so long in the back of her mind, she doesn't know what to say.  She sighs, and perches herself on the edge of the sofa, behind Jon's head so he'll have to twist around to look at her.  She doesn't think she wants him to, keeps her eyes fixed on the bland tan walls and her tongue moving before it can stop itself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You aren't the only one who needs to apologise, I think."  Her mouth is dry.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He raises an eyebrow.  The usual snark is missing, however, and as he looks up at her Jon seems more tired than anything else.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That's her cue, then.  "I'm sorry,  Jon, really I am.  I overreacted – it wasn't worth freezing you out for five years, that wasn't fair.  I've – I've missed you."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I wasn't exactly far away," he says.  She knows what he means, supposes he's right.  She could have said something sooner.  So much for not being scared of anything; she hadn't wanted to put herself through this, hadn't wanted to risk the potential rejection, and in the end that had had the same results.  "I've missed you too, though."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Are we friends, then?" It's the same script as years ago, paper pulled from scrap by lonely tongues.  There's something building in her chest, she wants to reach out to her younger self and yell loudly how the threads of inevitability tying her life knot together into something wonderful just as often as something painful; she's scared she'll drown it in her own neuroses again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As ever, Jon's oblivious to the swirling tumult in her head.  He offers her his hand.  There's a scar on his palm from the long distant afternoon they'd decided to spend frying pakoras, when he'd been so caught up infodumping at her about termite architecture that he hadn't realised he'd upended the oil until it splashed into his gesturing hand.  It had been awful; he hadn't been able to write for weeks; the mark is nearly faded now.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She takes his hand in her own, the scar vanishing from view.  It's like finally finding the warm again; she hadn't realised how numb she felt before she came in from the cold. Georgie smiles, and Jon smiles back, and the embers glow gently and bright in her chest.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I'd like that."</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Graduation comes sooner than any of them expect. This time, Georgie seeks Jon out, finds him staring at his own piece of creamy paper with a look of distant amazement.  He notices her arrival, huffs a surprised laugh and calls her over.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Georgie! I have a Bachelor's!" His teeth gleam white with delight as he shows it to her, though his hands stay tight around the edges.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She grins back at him.  "Just try not to pass out again."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He rolls his eyes, but he struggles to hold the expression for long.  He keeps glancing back at the paper, as if he thinks it will vanish if he looks away for too long.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She can feel Oliver looking at her from where he's still talking to Melanie.  The two got on surprisingly well, finding common ground in having absolutely no idea on what to talk about.  She flashes him a thumbs up, sees him react with a smile that crinkles up the corners of his eyes.  It's strange to think about, but Oliver's been getting older just as she has.  He-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgie isn't going to think about that.  Today's a good day.  He's proud of her, and so is she.  She thinks her parents would be too; however difficult these past few years have been, she's done well for herself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jon says something then, pulling her out of her head.  It's fast and happy, but that's all she catches.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Huh?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He huffs in exasperation, but it has to slip through a smile to reach her so he can't be that annoyed. "Congratulations on the Shirley.  You've put a lot of work in and you deserve it; I'm happy for you, Georgie."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The medal weighs heavy around her neck, the sort of solidity she almost can't believe.  It's one thing to be told you're good at English, but quite another to win an award for it. "Thanks," she says.  She glances over at Oliver and Melanie again – still talking, from the looks of it, Melanie's hands flashing fast and happy in the long sleeves of her gown – and bites her lip, thinking.  There's no sign of Elias anywhere on the field, no awful smell of too much cologne and while ugly ties are plentiful, none of them belong to him. "Hey, Jon, we were planning on the Toby later – do you want to come with?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's Jon's turn to bite his lip and look thoughtful.  It isn't somewhere that either of them would usually choose, but Oliver always insists that a necessary part of any celebration is far too much stuffing and gravy.  "I'll have to ask Martin what his plans are, but – that sounds lovely, Georgie."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Fab!" She hugs him, tight, and dashes back to where her girlfriend and her guardian are discussing, of all things, the best brand of chalk pen.  Georgie slots herself in between them, an arm around each.  "Jon's coming to dinner, by the way."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Cool, he can help me persuade you that we don't need lime green curtains," Melanie says.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgie may now have a degree, but she does not have the self control necessary to not stick her tongue out at her girlfriend.  "Tough luck babe, Jon's taste is just as terrible as mine."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"So you admit that it's terrible?" Oliver asks dryly.  He looks her dead in the eye as he says it, no care whatsoever for the fact that he just murdered her in broad daylight.  Of course, he's a coroner – one more dead body shouldn't bother him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie legitimately cackles in response, eyes bright with glee, and really, what had Georgie been so worried about?  She was never going to let herself lose this.  Not in a million years.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>She had started the relevant conversation entirely by accident.  It had been a few months before exams, right at the point between existential dread and cramming, and she'd been moping on the way to class, Melanie by her side in a bright yellow rain mac.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"It's just odd.  We've spent so long practically in each other's pockets, and in a few months we'll just… be done," she'd said, scuffing the path in front of her with grubby trainers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I think you mean literally." Melanie had laughed at her own bad joke, pulling Georgie closer with the hand slipped into her trouser pocket, as always.  She was right; it was a habit of theirs.  "But I get what you mean.  I'm going to miss cooking with you."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I'm going to miss your terrible bed hair," Georgie had teased.  She'd kissed her girlfriend's temple, trying to make the most of what time they'll have left.  She wasn't planning on breaking up with her, couldn't imagine ever wanting to do that, but… in a few months everything would be different.  No more racing past Melanie down Gertrude's creaky staircase, no more excited discussions in the back of class.  While the future felt exciting, and she couldn't wait to see the results of all her hard work, she had felt the time in between slipping through her fingers like so many grains of rice.  Georgie wouldn't have wanted to be frozen like this forever, but she'd wished they had had longer before being forced into some new shape.  For the first time, time was moving too quickly for her.  "I'm going to miss seeing you every day.  I just wish we didn't have to move out so soon."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie had nodded her agreement, lips pursed.  "What if we didn't?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I think Gertrude would commit a crime, however much she likes you."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"That's not what I meant.  We could move out together, get a flat?" Melanie had flushed at the mistake, but continued. "We don't have to, but- but I'd like to."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Count your options, </span>
  </em>
  <span>her mum would say.  At first, Georgie remembered how awful she felt the last time she moved somewhere new, but then she remembered talking with Melanie at Gertrude's, in the garden, in the bathroom, in the hallway when they couldn't tear themselves away, in Georgie's bedroom waking up.  The thought of a lifetime talking with Melanie sounded wonderful, sounded like the best option she could ever get for happiness.  "We're already basically living together, right?  Now we'll just have to fight over wardrobe space."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie laughed, bright and delighted, and Georgie felt it like a warm glow deep within her chest.  She pressed a kiss to her girlfriend's cheek, and began planning, head full of cardboard boxes and packing tape.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"There's something else we should talk about, then," she said, and grinned.  "I've been thinking about getting a cat."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Admiral moves into their flat a month after Melanie and Georgie.  She spends the morning beforehand on her hands and knees in the living room in one last attempt to cat-proof, but from past experience she knows this is doomed to fail.  They'd had a cat when she was a kid, a tortoiseshell; her dad named him Frankenstein because of the patchwork pattern and much like his namesake, "the honourable doctor" had a habit of getting into things he shouldn't have.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Georgie finds another pen under the sofa and throws it behind her to the box labelled </span>
  <em>
    <span>Melanie.  </span>
  </em>
  <span>It's lidless, but it could still work.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She's just glad they've finished with unpacking.  That really would have caused issues.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jon appears in the doorway looking frazzled.  He's developed a habit, now that he's grown his hair out, of tightening and untightening his hairbands when nervous, and from the way he's frantically clutching at his hair she can tell that he's very stressed indeed.  There's a plaster on his thumb, a long jagged rip in his olive green t-shirt like a gaping maw, and paint spattered across the cuffs of his jeans.  He had offered to put together a cat tree; Georgie has no idea where the paint came from.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"We've decided to stop for tea," he says, looking down at her with a quizzical expression.  A </span>
  <em>
    <span>crash </span>
  </em>
  <span>comes from the other room, and muffled swearing, and she thinks that the proposed break is probably one of his better ideas.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Cool," she says, and heaves herself up.  Her joints creak in protest, and when she looks down she realises the carpet has left crisscross dents on her knees.  "I'll stick the kettle on."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She crosses over to the kitchen, Jon trailing behind like a confused duckling.  They both trip over the cardboard box vomiting its contents into the hallway, though, so while he continues on she sticks her head into the bedroom.  "Everything alright in there, babe?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Nope!" Melanie doesnt look up from where she's crouched at the foot of the bed, screwdriver behind one ear and the beginnings of a cat tree lying dismembered around her.  She's wearing an intense look of frustration and one of Georgie's hoodies; every so often she swipes angrily at her hair </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Everything is very much not alright."  As she speaks, the construction in front of her collapses.  She swears.  An attempt is made to push it back up; this attempt is entirely unsuccessful and neither of them is surprised.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You want me to come in and help?" Georgie asks, taking pity on her girlfriend. "Or do you want to come out and have a break?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I'm queer," Melanie deadpans.  She stands up with a horrible crackling sound, and nearly stumbles over the bed on the way out, but makes a valiant attempt at ignoring this.  She's clearly been on the ground too long; Georgie's glad she came in when she did.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She pecks Georgie on the cheek on the way out the room, and takes her arm like a lady in a period drama.  "Shall we?" She asks, in a mock-snooty voice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The kettle starts bubbling in the kitchen where Jon's finally got it to work.  Georgie looks down at her beautiful, wonderful girlfriend, and simply has to kiss her.  There's no other option.  "Yes," she says.  "We shall."</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Georgie Barker :handshake: Anne Shirley: neruodivergent bisexual storytellers</p></blockquote></div></div>
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